Better make it tomorrow," Al said.
"No, I gotta do tack samples. We can get an earlier start on Saterdai -"
"Jase. Saterdai... uh, it's Kitday."
Jasen stopped, and grimaced. "Fuuht!"
"Yup."
"Hadeez. Working on my floater is out, then, 'til Sundai. Yeah, let's go get plowed the night before. Serves 'em right."
Al nodded.
The fourth of Awgusst was a long, tense day for many guys. All over the world, it was the least favorite day of the year for some. It went all the way back to the terraformers, almost four hundred Cel-years ago.
"Hey, maybe we should take off? Saterdai?"
Al looked at him, then understood. "Serrup Bay. Get out of the city. Sounds good, anyway, but they've just followed me before."
Jasen rolled his eyes. "Aaaah, copy. I'm shadowed already."
"Ow. Sorry, pod." Al got a shrug for a response. "How long you known?"
"About a week," Jase said, with a disgusted expression.
Al whistled. "Confirm that."
The atmosphere creation phase almost tanked, more than once. The kittlers just phased in from whatever dimension it is they live in, discovered the terratechs and started to mess with 'em. From their vidlogs, it looked like it was just short of chaos. Kitday, every day. What a mess. If it wasn't for the female techs there wouldn't even be people on Celik yet. The kittlers almost always mess with buuks. Nobody knows why.
They weren't in any great hurry to communicate. Fairly telepathic, too. They didn't let up until the techs hit 'em hard with protosonics. That got their attention. The negotiations started, and we got a lot of oxides. They invited us to send a engineering delegation - construction trades - and the council almost did it. But somebody caught on. Buildings and infrastructure, for a species that didn't appear to have any mass? Imagine ending up on that team. Phased out to some place we didn't even know how to get to, much less send in a rescue party... a few young techs, almost all of 'em guys, trapped on their world.
Hardly anyone dared to put the obvious in their logs - if the kittlers just up and kidnapped a sporebanger - well, Hadeez, or every buuk on the planet - we couldn't do anything about it. Still can't, really. We've managed to send a few bots there, but plotting a course in omnispace is excruciatingly complex.
Jase got out of his floater and looked around. There it was again - movement, not quite visible, but it was like the tenth time he'd noticed it. He looked around and puffed on his cigar. Kittlers.
Overly eager. In other years, when he was getting scoped out a whole week before Kitday, they'd really redlined him good.
Since he became eligible he'd been selected every Cel-year except two, which was pretty typical.
Well, fuhht 'em, he thought, it was just one day. Can't be helped, so just get it over with. Bring it on.
So the council worked out these trade agreements, and the kittlers got the run of us every Awgusst 4th. It's a tradition. The next day is a holiday, 'cause we're all too sore to do anything. For centuries now, we've been raised on bonfire stories and scary legends. Kittler reform schools for bad little boys. The secret playrooms under the ore-tunnels where they get in some practice. Or the kid they chose one Kitday even though he wasn't old enough to be potent.
As we grew up, we found out for ourselves what Kitday was like. And there were new tales and myths... The more you smoke, the more tolerable it becomes. Jealous bedmates can call 'em down on you, set you up for a really plasmatic Kitday. The year they didn't leave on Awgusst 5th. Rumors of concoctions, common herbs and steroids, that would make you less reactive to the stimulation.
After eight or ten years of it, we'd start to relax. But the stories got more daunting. The friend of somebody's father's cousin who got selected every Kitday for thirty straight years. Guys that weren't returned on the 5th, hidden in some cave or waterpod for a month of Kitdays. The drugs they'd slipped into our water condensors that made it so much worse than it used to be. Or guys who were phased into nontime, worked over for who knows how long and returned on the same Awgusst 4th.
But only fringeoids really believed that stuff. It was probably natural enough for us to "what-if", especially as Awgusst rolled around again.
"Gotta cigar?" Britte said, as they left the plant on Fridei.
"Yeah." He dug a couple out and gave her one, sticking the other between his teeth.
She took a light and nodded her thanks. "Where are you off to?"
"Antipode Waste, I wish -"
"I meant tonight."
"Oh, probably Diki's."
She smiled. "Got your sodium dichro?" The latest rumored thing to take, to repel 'em...
"Double dose."
"Alright. Maybe I'll stop by on Sundai and make rude jokes at your expense. 'Oooh, I'm so sore... I can't move...' "
"Yeah. Thanks. Come over when I'm disabled, and I can't jump ya."
That got a laugh. "Of course."
"You that sure you're off the hook?"
She smiled at him. "Poor Jase. I've only been selected twice." Two Kitdays, out of her whole life.
"Fuhht," he groaned. "It ain't fair." They stopped in front of his floater. "This is me. Diki's?"
"Maybe," she said. "If not, you can tell me all about it later."
"Oh yeah. Seeya..."
They got into it that night. Partying as only doomed men can.
The standing joke was to get yourself as trashed as possible, so you wouldn't be an attractive target - or when they grabbed you, be too hung over to get the full ration they could give you. Every club was full. More buuks than women, making a lot of noise, smoke and loud tostero music spilling out the door with them...
Tem howled, long and loud. Jasen joined in, and others.
"Fuhtin' Kittler perverts," Jase laughed.
"Fuhtin' Council," Tem shot back. "Making their deals -"
"Well buuk, what choice do they have? Gotta deal."
"No, they don't."
"We're all fish in a tub."
"Confirm that, podmate. Fish in a tub -"
"Fish in a tub!" They chanted, laughing as they did. Others picked it up and spread it to a half-dozen taverns. Jase and Tem started it up again as they stumbled back through the door of Diki's.
"Al! There he is. Pod, how much longer?"
He tried to focus on his chron. "Uh. A pair of drinks."
"Bring 'em on," Tem barked.
"Drinks for the condemned!" Jasen shot back. A cheer went up...
And before they knew it, the beep came. Daychange.
A lull fell over the club. Tradition. Usually they were allowed to get at least a little sleep, but even so... Kitday was here again. Thoughts turned to the bad years, especially grueling torments, the ones so much more devastating than usual.
"I'm going to Dekafix. Who's with me?" Al said.
"Yeah," Tem said. "C'mon, Jase."
"In a bit," Jasen said, lost in thought. The other buuk shrugged, and off they went. He dug for a cigar and wondered. A little worried, actually. Getting scoped that many days before, it was probably gonna be bad. And now it was here, the day they hated most -
"Jase!" Al shouted, running up.
"What?" he said, with a faint hope he was misreading Al's expression.
"Tem. They got him. Barely daychange, and they dragged him off already..."
Jasen nodded slightly, with a bad fear twisting in his belly.
But if you throw enough alcohol at the inevitable, you forget how to worry.
Jase reached a comfortable state, nice and numb. His bladder was complaining, though. He looked around with an effort... and found Al, talking with a waitress.
"C'mon, this could be my last night of freedom."
"Until Sundai," she giggled.
"Al. I'm gonna go... check the plumbing."
"Yeah, yeah..."
Carefully, he pushed himself up, and weaved. Not too bad. He took his time walking. Seriously impaired people, everywhere he looked. Through the door and over to a portal, where he stuck his cigar between his teeth, unsnapped, and let loose. He sighed softly.
Right after he finished - that sensation again. Someone watching. He started to look around.
Dark. Soft, warm. He'd been sleeping. Still tired. Jasen thought hard. He remembered Diki's...
Well, blacking out was hardly a new thing. Maybe some sympathetic doe had taken him home. He moved his arm cautiously to see who might be there, but found a wall instead. And this wasn't his pod...
Still puzzled, he drifted back to sleep.
The wind was gusting. That seemed odd. He felt it... all over. So he looked -
Daylight. No clothes. Oh, yeah. Kitday.
Even so, where was he? Felt like outside, but it was all white.
All. White.
No walls, no streets... Level plain running off in all directions. The "sky" was lighter, but not by much. He seemed to be on a raised platform, but there was nothing by which he could measure the height.
Something was fundamentally wrong, here. But... "Okay. Get it over with -"
The air shimmered. Above him.
A head appeared. Hologram -
"Hail you, buuk of Celik. This is a past transmission. I, Jesange, serve as the coordinator of the Trade Council."
"What the fuhht?" Jasen said.
"You are about to make a tremendous sacrifice for the good of our planet..."
"The hadeez I am -"
"...at the insistence of the Kittlers."
He froze.
"The freedom of thousands of citizens has been protected by meeting these unpleasant terms -"
"Unpleasant?"
"And as in all historic negotiations, there are some who must be called upon to pay an extraordinary price."
"No. No, no, no -"
"While it is impossible to make your heroic sacrifice known to the citizens of Celik, you will be a very wealthy man upon returning to your homeworld."
"Please..."
"Unfortunately, that will be an indefinite... time from now. You will be given the best of care by the Kittlers. They have transported you to their homeworld for an extended stay."
Jasen whimpered.
If there was any other way to restrain the Kittlers, you would not be here. Never forget that the ordeal you are about to undergo is ensuring the continual freedom of other buuks. You remain in our hope."
"No."
"The Council will honor you on your... eventual... return. Jesange hails you."
With a sad, guilty expression, the coordinator's eyes fell. The hologram dissolved.
And the air changed - No, he thought wildly, that's just a Kittler phasing in. A thousand of 'em, maybe, all around him. The wavy disturbance was everywhere he looked, as if a building was forming around him -
The platform shifted - under him, falling away in places, raising slightly in others. It felt wet, and warm, and started to vibrate very faintly.
His arms were pulled away from his sides. Some invisible pressure, wrapping around each wrist like a sandbag. Then his ankles slid far apart -
A finger... he looked down frantically. Something like a fingertip, sliding above his navel. He couldn't see it, but it kept moving. It felt oily, then like ice... like a mild shock, and then a stiff brush, and then like the tip of a glass rod. A half-dozen more sensations came and went before he could recognize them.
"No, no, I'm begging you -"
More of them started on his soles.
Jasen yelled, and thrashed around - the results were not at all satisfactory - and then he sucked in air. And howled it back out.
The contact multiplied all over him, and under - and he howled again, and he whooped for a while. Then he just laughed and laughed.
08jul00